


give you everything i have (i promise, i'll do better)

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, there's a little nod to the comics in that we have nat and clint discussing kate bishop very briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha finds Clint perched on the edge of Tony Stark's roof directly after they save New York from Loki's army.</p><p>Noncompliant with 'Age of Ultron'. Don't worry, though; there aren't any spoilers for AOU in this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give you everything i have (i promise, i'll do better)

**Author's Note:**

> um i need clintasha in my life bye

Natasha finds him perched on the edge of Tony Stark’s dilapidated and unrecognizable roof, empty beer bottles lined up neatly next to him as he stares out contemplatively at the darkened city. New York is quiet for the first (and, most likely, last) time in its history. In the immediate wake of all that’s happened, the lights usually scattered across the cityscape have been extinguished. Natasha walks across the rooftop to meet him, arms crossed.

Without turning back, Clint mutters: “Nat.”

“Never could sneak up on you, could I?” she replies, walking up next to him and standing by the ledge where he sits. “Ah, well. I’ll break that streak someday.”

“I’m not in the habit of having my streaks broken,” he murmurs absentmindedly, tapping his fingers on the side of the ledge. The plummeting drop to the ground would be devastating and most likely fatal. He leans over slightly anyway. “But maybe next time you’ll get me.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Natasha pulls herself up, sitting down next to him, legs dangling idly over the edge as she looks over at him. Clint is sitting straight as a rod, eyes unfocused and glazed over with what she knows to be deep thought. _Flattered_ is the only way to describe what she feels when she sees him like this, so unguarded in her presence. His bow and quiver of arrows lie discarded behind the two of them.

To the rest of the world, he is Hawkeye, calculating and intense, armed with highly sharpened skills and the ability to stand over a man as he breathes his last and feel nothing. But Natasha knows him as Clint, has always known him as just Clint – a man ragged at the edges, with hands much harder than his heart.

Her Clint Barton: forgiving, heartbreakingly trusting, the kind of person who’d throw himself in front of a bullet to save a puppy caught in the crossfire. She doesn’t like to think about how they met – or her version of it, at least; if there’s anything she’s learned today, it’s that they have very different perceptions of what happened in Budapest.

But she does remember how it felt to prepare herself for death as she lay on the ground, durable limbs robbed of their strength. She remembers the shift in his eyes, the sound that his gun made when it clattered to the ground, the earnest sincerity in his voice as he dropped to his knees and asked her to come back to SHIELD with him.

She remembers being angry and hysterical and _stunned,_ above all other things, that someone with his past could be so trusting – how she’d almost ripped his throat out a few minutes prior to this but he was still willing to give her a chance to start over. Natasha didn’t understand him then, which hasn’t changed over the course of their many years working together, but that’s the only thing.

Finally, Clint looks over at her. A small smile touches his lips. “Nat.”

“Agent Barton.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been worse.”

And Natasha can’t help but smile a little, too, because there’s something about being in his presence that’s just so intoxicating; what they have is more than just love – it’s a vicious and passionate dance in which two people complement each other perfectly, it’s the weight of shared experience that has left scars in all the wrong places, it’s the act of trusting someone wholly and completely when you thought the ability to trust had been taken from you a long time ago.

Love is for children. What she feels for Clint cannot be put into words.

“While I was waiting for you to join me up here, I invented a little game. You want to play?”

“Knowing the games you usually dream up? Maybe after I’ve had a beer.”

“Alright, well, fair enough.”

He leans off the ledge, picks up a bottle of beer, and tosses it to her, putting a spin on it just for fun. It curves through the air and Natasha lets it fly past her, off the side of the building, before reaching out and grabbing it before it can fall away from her reach. A bit showy, yes, but she can afford theatrics when it’s just her and him.

“Show-off,” Clint says.

“Look who’s talking!”

As she pops open the bottle, Clint explains: “See that building over there?”

He lifts his finger to point at a building three blocks away.

Natasha squints. “The one with all the smashed windows?”

“Yeah. You think I can hit one of ‘em?”

“With what?”

“Empty beer bottles.”

Natasha snorts and narrowly avoids getting alcohol up her nose. “That’s funny, Clint. Real funny. You’re not that good.”

“’Scuse me, what’s my superhero name?”

“Dorkface.”

His face twitches slightly. “Have you been hanging out with Kate?”

“A little.”

“Why would you do that?”

“SHIELD is a bit of a boy’s club. And Kate’s a very cool girl. Probably be a better partner than you are.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

Natasha smirks for a second before downing the remaining beer in her bottle and placing it in his hand. Her fingertips linger on his wrist for a second before she draws away and pats him on the arm. “Well, let’s see you prove me wrong, Hawkeye.”

Clint stands up, framed dramatically against the watery moonlight as he does, and she looks up at him, reminded irresistibly of the ragtag man who held a gun to her forehead as the Budapest sun set behind him. In that moment, neither of them could have ever even imagined sitting on a rooftop at midnight with each other, rid of the cold and conniving guises they both wore, souls bared for the other to see.

But here they are, and as Clint winds up for a throw, eyes narrowing slightly to focus on his target, Natasha rests her chin on her hand and thanks whoever’s looking out for them that they managed to find their way here.

The bottle flies through the air neatly, straight as an arrow from his bow. They both watch it smash into the wall directly next to one of the windows.

“Ha!”

A shout of laughter escapes Natasha before she can manage to contain it; sudden, violent bursts of emotion are very much _not_ her thing – she is built on subtleties and quiet insinuations, not outbursts that overflow and evaporate as quickly as they appear.

“Damn,” Clint says, not sounding very disappointed about it at all, and drops back down to sit next to her. “I definitely didn’t see that coming.”

“What do I get in return?”

“Um, the pleasure of getting to watch me, Hawkeye, miss a target for the first time in my life?”

“Really scraping the bottom of the barrel with that prize,” Natasha shoots back, and can’t quite hold back her laughter when he makes a face at her. It’s been a very long time since they were together like this, lingering in the golden hour after a shared triumph, where it isn’t blood in their mouths but the elixir of victory, and the threats that perpetually hang over their shoulders seem to be on the horizon. Things that can wait until tomorrow.

It truly astounds her, how much of her he holds in his bare hands – how much of her she has poured into him. After the Red Room, Natasha was certain she’d never be able to trust anyone ever again. The only thing trust had ever gotten her was pain. But Clint’s voice is soothing and he smells of cinnamon and his eyes are filled to the brim with the special kind of sadness that only she could ever understand.

“One day I’ll reward you appropriately for your work, Agent Romanoff.”

“You’d better.”

Clint chuckles, Natasha hasn’t ever been one for casual touching, but she’s filled with euphoria, feels like she might be bursting with it, drunk on victory and fatigue and him, him, _him._ It is the relief at seeing Clint behave like himself again that prompts her to lay her head on his shoulder. His back is militaristically straight and Natasha is sick of it, sick of the soldier the past few days has warped him into. She wants her sharpshooting, loose-limbed spy back.

She leans on him and trusts him enough to catch her if she should fall.

“Hey, Nat – remember how you told me to warn you if you ever got dangerously close to being sappy?”

“Yes. But this is different. I’m just … happy, I guess.”

The word tastes odd on her tongue, but not in an unpleasant way. He turns his head to look down at her and he’s grinning at her, bright and beautiful and unequivocally Clint. Before she realizes it, Natasha’s chin is on his shoulder and she can feel his smile moving beneath her lips as she kisses him with another laugh bubbling up in her throat. Clint doesn’t resist, doesn’t even try – leans into it, on the contrary, lips slightly cracked. They are just as soft as he is and twice as warm.

Natasha pulls away first. Their faces are still impossibly close; she can feel his breath, warm and even on her face, can hear his heartbeat, which beats on steadily, against all odds.

She remembers how loss feels, and decides that it isn’t nearly as awful as not being sure whether you’ve lost someone or not. But Clint always comes back to her in the end.

He looks down at her with galaxies in his eyes and says her name in that low, heartfelt voice she likes.

So she kisses him again, one step at a time, hands soaked with the blood of ghosts slowly moving out to touch his calloused fingers. It’s gentle and quiet, which is foreign to the both of them: Natasha Romanoff is neither gentle nor quiet. She is fire, rage, thunderstorms, but Clint does not run from her, does not look into her eyes and see an inferno that will swallow him whole. He stands before her without qualm, watches her flames burn hotter and brighter, and allows himself to be enveloped by her light.

He does not fear her. And, at the same time, he fears her more than anything else in the world.

The alcohol on his lips is making her heart beat faster as Clint shifts nearer, one arm moving to rest lightly on her waist as she kisses him with hesitance and haste, all at once.

“’Tasha,” Clint breathes into her mouth, and Natasha has to break away to laugh all of a sudden, unable to contain it anymore; she’s so thankful that he’s here with her, that they ever met at all. She’s grateful that he hasn’t broken down her walls but scaled them. She’s so, so glad that the universe managed to think up a concept like Clint Barton.

Clint is looking at her with the awe of a blind man seeing for the first time, a little dumbstruck and a little stunned. Natasha looks back at him unabashedly and does not speak for fear of contaminating the moment with words.

Finally, she whispers: “We should go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

“Okay.”

(The next morning, Tony finds the two of them asleep on the side of his roof, Natasha draped over Clint. He doesn’t wake them up, but only because Natasha might shoot him if he does.)


End file.
